Axel René Romero Esquivel
Co-Founder & CTO at Destap · Developer Security Operations at Codercraft · Senior Software Engineer — Córdoba, Argentina · Remote (any timezone) · English & Spanish (fluent).
My first contact with programming was at 8, making classic, retro video games in ActionScript 2.0. I've studied development since 15 and worked in the field since 18. Over time I've worked across several areas (web, software, game dev, data science and cybersecurity) and today I build products that run in production. I lead Destap as Co-Founder & CTO and work as DevSecOps at Codercraft, with a focus on security: audits, hardening and incident response. I'm curious about neuroscience and adopted LLMs early: today I work daily with Claude Code and Codex.
Experience
- Co-Founder & CTO — Destap (2023 — Present): the Venue Operating System (VOS) for nightclubs and bars — online ordering, QR pickup and Mercado Pago; I lead it technically.
- Developer Security Operations — Codercraft (2026 — Present): I build Enroque, a cybersecurity human-risk-management SaaS (in-workday micro-exercises, per-person audit evidence mapped to ISO 27001/NIST/PCI, privacy-first agent); plus audits, VPS hardening, secure CI/CD, pentesting and incident response (OWASP, NIST).
- Co-Founder & Tech Lead — ROD (2023 — 2025): dev studio and our first startup; custom software for clients — Yaguareté Group's production ERP (sand distribution), iphoneshop's management system and store (cellphone sales & repair) and tradi, a social network for tattoo artists and piercers with booking and deposits — and where Destap was born (Next.js, NestJS, MongoDB).
- Senior Full-Stack Web Developer — digiventures (2022 — 2023): digital onboarding platform for LATAM banks (KYC, scoring, e-signature), clients like Kavak and Favacard.
- Full-Stack Web Developer — Devlights (2021 — 2022): maintenance of a marketplace with millions of visits and response to a cybersecurity incident (ransomware).
- Full-Stack & Marketing — Quinsa (2021): e-commerce (Tienda Nube → WooCommerce) and digital marketing.
- Full-Stack Web Developer — Epimedia Estudio (2020 — 2021): WordPress, JavaScript and PHP; WhatsApp chatbots; +40% sales from a UX/UI redesign.
- Data Scientist & Software Developer Jr — Independent (2019 — 2020): “Maxmin”, an algorithmic trading system in Python (backtesting and optimization with multiprocessing).
- Graphic Designer — Independent (2017 — 2019): brand identity and pieces for events and shops (Photoshop, Illustrator).
Projects
- Destap — Venue Operating System (VOS) for nightclubs and bars (Next.js, NestJS, MongoDB).
- Enroque — Cybersecurity human-risk-management SaaS I build solo: in-workday micro-exercises + per-person audit evidence mapped to ISO 27001/NIST/PCI (Rust, Tauri, Next.js).
- Motumbo — Browser physics sumo game: deterministic simulation in C compiled to WebAssembly (Box3D) with serverless multiplayer over WebRTC (C, WASM, Three.js).
- n64-web — Nintendo 64 emulator in the browser: local up to 4 and online P2P over WebRTC on Cloudflare Workers + Durable Objects (TypeScript, WASM, WebRTC).
- DELVE — Top-down twin-stick roguelite in the browser: deterministic procedural dungeons (seed = run), shareable seeds and a daily challenge, zero art/audio assets (all synthesized at runtime), a sim decoupled from rendering with headless tests (JavaScript, Three.js, WebGL).
- Moveo — Desktop wellness coach with camera-verified exercises (MediaPipe pose estimation), context-aware reminders and 100% local privacy (Python, PySide6, MediaPipe).
- Astorvia — Web3 investment platform with KYC and crypto/fiat funding (Next.js, RainbowKit, Stripe).
- Teo Escobar Barber — Home-service barber site in production: backend-less booking that composes a WhatsApp order, 3D scissors and local SEO (Next.js, TypeScript, React Three Fiber).
Security
- Audio forensics (legal case) — helped Fernando Branca (computer-forensics expert) with the technical speaker-comparison: matching a questioned voice against dozens of reference recordings in the case file.
- Incident response & hardening — handled a ransomware incident at Creative Humans (US client) from report to recovery and rebuilt the whole infrastructure, new and hardened, in 2 weeks.
- Audits, bug bounty & practice — audited Destap and five Codercraft products; ~10 bug bounty reports at large companies; red/blue teaming labs (OWASP, NIST, ISO 27001, PCI DSS).
Education
- Bachelor's in Information Systems — UNNE (2019 — 2022, coursework).
- Information Systems Engineering — UTN (2018 — 2019, coursework).
Certifications
- Checkout Pro — Mercado Pago · Mercado Libre (Apr 2024)
- Problem Solving — Capability Building · digiventures (Feb 2023)
Skills
Languages: TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, C, Rust, PHP, SQL. Frontend: React, Next.js, Three.js, PySide6/Qt, HTML/CSS, jQuery. Backend: Node.js, NestJS, Express. Data: MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch, SQL, SQLite. Cloud & DevOps: AWS (Lambda, Beanstalk, EC2, S3, Route 53), Cloudflare Workers & Durable Objects, Hetzner, Linux, Caddy, Traefik, Nginx, PM2, CI/CD. Systems & real-time: WebAssembly, WebRTC, Tauri, Computer Vision (MediaPipe), lockstep netcode. Security: DevSecOps, hardening, pentesting, incident response, OWASP, NIST, ISO 27001, PCI DSS. Practice: testing (pytest, Playwright), Git, Agile, technical leadership, AI-assisted dev (GPT, Codex, Claude Code). Other: Web3, Figma, Photoshop/Illustrator, WordPress/WooCommerce, Mercado Pago.
Contact
Email: axel42romero@gmail.com ·
GitHub ·
LinkedIn ·
destap.app